In our meeting on Friday, October 18, I asked my working team to help me solve a problem. I was looking for a way to provide enough practice on our ELOs (Essential Learning Outcomes) for Writing to allow for me to assess students more often for reported grade purposes. Sara shared the website NoRedInk. This site provides practice and assessments for the conventions of writing. There is immediate feedback and data tracking for teacher use. This will allow me to provide practice and assess students on editing for various conventions in a time efficient manner. (Cindy, Monett)
Mark Overmeyer, a National Writing Project teacher, holds some strong beliefs about assessment which he shares in his book What Student Writing Teaches Us: Formative Assessment in the Writing Workshop (2009). He writes, "Assessment, when used correctly in a formative way, can empower students and teachers not only to improve but, better yet, to believe in themselves as writers and teachers of writing. And once students believe they are writers and you believe you are a teacher of writing, any barrier, no matter how imposing begins to crumble" (p.7).
Overmeyer recommends that students be involved in the assessment of their writing and suggests that the students help revise rubrics the teacher has created which is what Cindy Carden and I tried recently. Cindy had prepared a rubric to assess students on their revisions of narratives. We listened to the students' responses on debriefing questions about what made "ba-da-bing" (see Mentor Lessons page) a worthwhile revision strategy; we inserted some of their language into the rubric.
At Laquey, Karen Leonard noticed that students were encouraged to speak to one another before I called on a few students to respond. Overmeyer calls such a tactic another formative assessment. All students are engaged in the conversation about the topic and then a few students are called on as a gauge of what is understood by all.
How students can improve their writing with ungraded work Blog post: Low-stakes Write to Learn. "When using “Writing to Learn,” students focus on just thinking and organizing their thoughts. They don’t need to worry about how incomprehensible their writing may come across — they can relax knowing that no one will evaluate this writing. Using this strategy teaches students that writing does not have to be publishable to be valuable."
Research and Assessment Tools from NWP
Contact NWP through the above link to request access to 1400+ assessment prompts, 300+ rubrics, and 350+ instruments for examining classroom practices
4-point rubric with two categories of purpose/organization and evidence/elaboration; condensed to one page by Amy Miller of Prairielands Writing Project
sites and apps for formative assessment
60 quick formative assessments
Here's a site with lots of assessment help for before, during, and after the learning experience. Many resources are linked here.
Kentucky Marker Papersused in a session at Laquey 3.18.2014
In our meeting on Friday, October 18, I asked my working team to help me solve a problem. I was looking for a way to provide enough practice on our ELOs (Essential Learning Outcomes) for Writing to allow for me to assess students more often for reported grade purposes. Sara shared the website NoRedInk. This site provides practice and assessments for the conventions of writing. There is immediate feedback and data tracking for teacher use. This will allow me to provide practice and assess students on editing for various conventions in a time efficient manner. (Cindy, Monett)
Mark Overmeyer, a National Writing Project teacher, holds some strong beliefs about assessment which he shares in his book What Student Writing Teaches Us: Formative Assessment in the Writing Workshop (2009). He writes, "Assessment, when used correctly in a formative way, can empower students and teachers not only to improve but, better yet, to believe in themselves as writers and teachers of writing. And once students believe they are writers and you believe you are a teacher of writing, any barrier, no matter how imposing begins to crumble" (p.7).
Overmeyer recommends that students be involved in the assessment of their writing and suggests that the students help revise rubrics the teacher has created which is what Cindy Carden and I tried recently. Cindy had prepared a rubric to assess students on their revisions of narratives. We listened to the students' responses on debriefing questions about what made "ba-da-bing" (see Mentor Lessons page) a worthwhile revision strategy; we inserted some of their language into the rubric.
At Laquey, Karen Leonard noticed that students were encouraged to speak to one another before I called on a few students to respond. Overmeyer calls such a tactic another formative assessment. All students are engaged in the conversation about the topic and then a few students are called on as a gauge of what is understood by all.
How students can improve their writing with ungraded work Blog post: Low-stakes Write to Learn.
"When using “Writing to Learn,” students focus on just thinking and organizing their thoughts. They don’t need to worry about how incomprehensible their writing may come across — they can relax knowing that no one will evaluate this writing. Using this strategy teaches students that writing does not have to be publishable to be valuable."
Research and Assessment Tools from NWP
Contact NWP through the above link to request access to 1400+ assessment prompts, 300+ rubrics, and 350+ instruments for examining classroom practices
Common Core Rubric Creator
Kathy Schrock's Assessments and Rubrics a long, long list
full argumentation teaching rubric from LDC
Formative Assessment as a Compass: Looking at Student Work as an On-going Part of PD - our own Terri McAvoy's and Beth Rimer's book